1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transflective liquid crystal display device, and more specifically to a technique effective when applied to a transflective liquid crystal display device based on the IPS (In Plane Switching) system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A transflective liquid crystal display device having a transmissive section and a reflective section within one sub-pixel has been used as a display for a portable device.
In this type of transflective liquid crystal display device, generally the vertical electric field system is used. In this system, an electric field is applied to a liquid crystal held between a pair of substrates in the direction vertical to a substrate plane of the pair of substrates to drive the liquid crystal. Furthermore, to match performance of the transmissive section to that of the reflective section, a step is provided for each of the transmissive section and the reflective section, and in addition a phase difference plate is provided between a polarization plate and a liquid crystal layer.
A liquid crystal device based on the IPS system has been known as a liquid crystal device. In the liquid crystal device based on the IPS system, a pixel electrode (PIX) and a counter electrode (CT) are formed on one substrate, and an electric field is applied to the two electrodes and the liquid crystal is turned on the substrate plane to provide controls over the brightness. Because of the mechanism, this type of liquid crystal device has a feature that contract of the displayed image is not inverted when the screen is viewed in the diagonal direction.
To effectively utilize the feature described above, the technique for configuring a transflective liquid crystal display device with the liquid crystal display device based on the IPS system is proposed, for instance, in JP-A-2003-344837.
Examples of the related art document relating to the present invention includes JP-A-2003-344837.